1. Field
The disclosed aspects relate to wireless communication devices, and more particularly, to systems, methods and apparatus for requesting performance data from wireless communication devices and providing the data to the requesting party in optimal file size.
2. Background
Wireless networking connects one or more wireless devices to other computer devices without a direct electrical connection, such as a copper wire or optical cable. Wireless devices communicate data, typically in the form of packets, across a wireless or partially wireless computer network and open a “data” or “communication” channel on the network such that the device can send and receive data packets. The wireless devices often have wireless device resources, such as programs and hardware components, which individually and cooperatively operate to use and generate data in accordance to their design and specific protocol or configuration, such as using open communication connections to transmit and receive data on the network
The current trend in the wireless communication device industry is to market devices that have a wide range of functionality. For example, a single wireless communication device may be capable of wireless telephone communication, digital photography, wireless Internet communication, electronic mail (email) and/or Short Message Service (SMS) communication, wireless audio and/or video downloading, other wireless network service communications and the like. In addition, the wireless communication device may be capable of storing or wirelessly accessing numerous applications that can then be executed on the wireless communication device.
As the functionality of these devices expands, the device users increasingly demand high performance and reliability. To insure such high performance and reliability, applications are being implemented to monitor performance so that service providers, device manufacturers and the like can respond to problems, or the potential for problems, in a timely fashion. Most of these monitoring-type applications require data to be collected at the wireless device and, in many instances, communicated to a network device for subsequent performance analysis. For example, a wireless telephone may log data related to calls or may capture data when an event, such as a “call failure” or a “call drop” occurs.
Currently, service providers, device manufacturers or any other third party entity that desires to have access to wireless device performance data will request performance data though a network service. For example, a requesting third party entity desiring performance data may access a network site run by the network service to request performance data from one or more wireless devices and provide performance data parameters. The performance data parameters may include, but are not limited to, identity of the wireless device or group of wireless devices from which data is to be collected, the events that are to be logged by the identified wireless device (s); the duration of time for collecting data; the percentage of data requested based on the total amount of data logged and the like. Once the network service has received a request, the network service configures the wireless device(s), retrieves the performance data from the wireless device(s), assembles a performance data file of the requested data for the requesting party and provides the requesting party access to the file.
In many instances the requesting third party will request performance data from numerous wireless devices and for extended periods of time, for example a month or thirty (30) day period. As such, the cumulative data that is collected from the wireless device(s) may form a large data file. For example, such performance data files may be as large as about 10 megabytes to about 1 gigabyte in terms of size. Network communication of such large data files poses a problem in terms of network efficiency and the use of network bandwidth. A large amount of network bandwidth must be available in order to communicate such large data files. In many instances, network communication of such large files may be delayed or otherwise fail due to network bandwidth constraints.
Additionally, in stances in which the requesting third party has requested performance data over an extended period of time, for example, a week, a month or the like, the requesting party may desire access to the performance data before all of the requested data has been generated and logged at the wireless device. For example, if the requesting third party has requested performance data for a month long period, the requesting period may benefit from having access to the data at weekly intervals.
Therefore, a need exists to develop methods, systems, apparatus and computer program products that alleviate problems related to large performance data files and, specifically, problems related to network communication of such large data files. As such, the desired methods, systems, apparatus and computer program products should provide for greater efficiency in terms of network bandwidth utilization. Additionally, a need exists to develop methods, systems, apparatus and computer program products that do not limit the requesting party to accessing the performance data only after the entire requested data has been generated and compiled. As such, the desired methods, systems, apparatus and computer program products should provide the user the ability to access to data while other data is still being generated, collected and compiled into performance data files.